Shadows of Our Love
by ShadowsOfOurLove
Summary: Spencer's life and sanity died along with Toby, and she's left to sit in her room in Radley alone. What will be her reaction when she gets an unexpected visitor one morning after she has a violent episode regarding Toby?


**Alright. This is my first one-shot to be published. I had this idea floating in my head one morning when I woke up, and more or less ran with it. Hope you guys like it.**

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Pretty Little Liars, Spencer, Toby, Eddie Lamb, or the fireplace scene. **

_Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in... Breathe out..._

Monotone steps echo in the hall beyond the padlocked door as she tiredly reminds herself to take in oxygen. A few months ago she would've scoffed and rolled her eyes if anyone had painted the picture she was now living in. The great Spencer Hastings wind up in a mental institute? Please. Now it was different. She doesn't even know who Spencer Hastings is anymore; she died along with him. Whoever she was now was a shell of her former self.

Once again, the memories flood unwanted into her mind. His blue eyes peering out from behind the black hoodie. Her crying on his steps, begging to be told that it had all been a joke. His body lying motionless and bloodied next to the smoking motorcycle. Running in a blind rage to catch Mona. Collapsing on the forest floor. Feeling her heart and soul slowly ripping themselves into millions of shattered pieces as she fought to catch her breath. Wandering aimlessly through the night, trying to outrun what she had seen. It had all been for nothing.

In those memories, there had been pain, anger, hatred, heartbreak, loathing, sadness. Now, she felt as though she had cried out any emotions that a person could feel. She was left hollow and worn. She couldn't remember what it felt like to be happy or peaceful or comfortable or content. None of that mattered now. He had taken that part of her with him. How could she feel any of those things now that he was gone?

She closed her eyes tiredly. A single tear fell from her left eye as she reopened them. She looked down at her appearance. The gown, though a size small, swallowed her body with ease. She had always been on the leaner side, but since coming here she had lost so much weight. Her skin had paled, and, with the white walls surrounding her, almost looked gray. Her well trimmed finger nails were worn down by her constant gnawing on them. She didn't need to look in the mirror to know that she had more bags under her eyes than an insomniac. Her once well kept hair was now matted and lifeless. Her lips now chapped and rough. Her spirited chocolate eyes now reminded her of the dead eyes of a shark hunting for its next meal. Her throat was constantly dry, probably from her anguished screams that accompanied her nightmares. She was no longer the healthy and vibrant young woman she used to be; she was now sickly and broken.

She knew her life was passing her by. She simply didn't care. Her friends had visited her on an almost daily basis when she had first been admitted. They would ask how she was doing and tell her stories that they thought she would find amusing. Maybe she did, but that emotion was weighed down by her heavy heart and she felt nothing. She showed nothing. After a couple weeks, their visits became fewer and further between. She hardly noticed; she didn't want to talk to anyone anyway.

Somewhere off in the hall she heard keys opening her door. She feared it was one of the nurses coming with her pills, or worse another injection. Instead, Eddie's voice was carried to her ears. He informed her that it was time she tried sleeping. He helped her by pulling the scratchy excuse of a blanket over her ever cold legs. She heard him say that he had a cup of water sitting on the bedside table beside her before he left her room, turning the light off. She let her head rest against the wall behind her as she closed her eyes again.

_The fire before them crackled as they sat side by side on her living room floor. She turned to face him and asked, "What does it feel like to run away?"_

"_Cold," he replied. "Didn't you ever run away?"_

_She thought for a moment. "Once. I think I was seven. My sister and I had an argument over something, and my parents took Melissa's side."_

"_What were you fighting about?" he asked curiously._

_She shook her head. "Some great injustice. I can't remember now. But they sided with her, so I made a tuna salad sandwich and I ran away."_

"_Where did you go?"_

"_The movies," she smiled, glancing at him. "It was something animated. There was a princess and everybody was singing." She paused, remembering the day that was so far behind her. "Then I got lonely. And I ate my tuna salad sandwich, and I came home." _

"_Were your parents worried?"_

_She shook her head slightly, looking blankly at the fire. "They hadn't even noticed I was gone."_

_He looked down. "Do me a favor?"_

"_What?"_

_She heard his voice say, "If you ever get the urge to run away again, call me first. Okay?"_

_She turned to say okay, but he was no longer beside her. She stood up, looking around wildly, the fire suddenly burnt out. When she turned to face the kitchen, she saw him. He was wearing black from head to toe, facing her but keeping his face concealed by the hood. She stepped toward him. Her eyes found his, and she screamed._

_Where his eyes should have been were two vacant holes. He looked like he was trying to say something to her, but he couldn't open his mouth. He tried reaching for her, but she backed away, frightened, before falling onto the couch. He leaned over her, and she closed her eyes so she couldn't see him while she screamed for anyone to hear her. _

She jolted upward, screaming from the haunting dream she'd just emerged from. She'd had dreams such as this too many times to count, but this one seemed to snap her sanity in half. She began clawing at her body, not wanting to feel the pain and hollowness anymore. She scraped at her eyes, her face, her neck, her chest, needing the pain to end once and for all. In a few places, she managed to break the skin. Soon her hands were covered in her own blood.

The commotion she was making alerted the nurses and security guards to her conniption. Within seconds, they flooded into her room. She struggled against the guards holding her down onto the bed, knowing what was coming. Her malnutrition and clumsy state made it easy for the guards to keep a hold on her. A wry nurse came up to her side. She began crying and begging for the woman to go away. The nurse, however, didn't pay her any mind, and with the help of the guards holding Spencer's arm steady, she injected the medicine into the bloodstream.

Almost instantly the drug began taking affect. She felt her muscles loosen and go limp. Her breathing slowed tremendously, sounding as if she was sleeping though she was wide awake. Another nurse began checking her vitals while the guards released their hold on her and vacated the room. The nurse pressed the bell of a stethoscope against her bloodied chest. The instrument was cold against her skin, but she didn't have the strength to move away. One read tinged tear fell mercilessly from her open eye as the nurse finished her evaluation and left, locking Spencer to her solitude again.

She lay that way for a long time, staring at the ceiling; she lay there until the feeling came back to her limbs. Even when she could move again, she didn't. She stayed motionless on the hard cot even when the promising rays of dawn broke through her window. She didn't jump up to the window like she would have a few months ago. There was nothing promising in her life now; nothing beautiful. All that was left were shadows of her life before everything happened to land her in this hell hole. Even worse were the shadows of their love that haunted her day after day, unrelenting in their quest to make her feel as empty as they possibly could.

All she could think about was him. Night after night. Week after week. Hour after torturous hour. His ocean blue eyes, lit up from laughter or filled with his seemingly unending love for her. His soft, supple lips that she had many times traced with her thumb before encasing them with her own. His strong arms wrapping around her frame and protecting her from all the troubles of the world. His calloused hands that still presented the softest of touches when he caressed her cheek. His voice that could ease the frantic thoughts about A, school, and getting into a Hastings approved college better than any other relaxation technique she had tried before. His unique smell a combination of mint, leather, and wood. Breathing deeply, she could almost still smell it...

The door to her room opened with a creak, allowing the scent to grow stronger. She felt the bed sag beneath her as her unknown visitor sat at the foot of her bed. She figured it was probably only Eddie, no doubt checking up on her after hearing from the other orderlies about last night's tantrum. He said nothing, however, as the moments passed. She felt a hand rest on her shoulder, but she didn't move.

"Spencer?" an all too familiar voice whispered. She nearly fell off the bed in surprise. She had heard his voice whispering to her multiple times, but this time it felt too real. She backed herself into the corner of the room, frantically trying to put distance between her and this hallucination that the drugs had clearly brought on. The drugs almost always brought hallucinations, always of him, but they happened at the start of the drug being pumped through her system. Not at the end. By now, the drugs were nearly all worn off.

She heard the bed creak as he lifted himself from it and slowly made his way over to her. He crouched down carefully so as not to spook her again. She kept her head low and her eyes squeezed shut, shaking as she tried to blot out the too vivid delusion. "You're not real, you're not real," she chanted. She rasped quietly, "Please, l-leave me alone."

His heart throbbed in pain. He reached out and gently cupped her bloodstained cheek, wiping a stray tear away. He felt some relief when she didn't shrink away from the contact. "I'm real, Spence," he reassured her, using his beloved nickname for her. "I'm here."

His hand felt like nothing more than a feather on her cheek. She wanted to feel comforted by it, but she didn't lean into it. She knew better than that. "No," she persisted weakly. "You're dead. I saw you. In the forest."

"It wasn't me, Spencer," he whispered. He gently took hold of her shaking hand, and though he felt her resist him, placed it over his heart, palm open. "I'm right here."

She could feel his heart beating tirelessly beneath her palm. Her hallucinations had never been this real. She allowed herself to open her eyes, but she did not raise her head. He removed the hand that was holding hers to his chest and brought it to her chin. He slowly raised her head, not wanting to push her too far but needing her to know that he was here.

"I'm right here," he repeated.

After hesitating, she brought her bloodshot eyes to meet his. They weren't as vibrantly blue as she remembered them being; they were more of a sad gray-blue now. She stated numbly, "You can't be here. You're one of them. You're supposed to hate me."

He wanted, right then and there to take him in his arms and kiss her, but knew it wouldn't go over well. He knew she would probably scream and thrash against him. He knew that would bring the nurses and guards again. He knew it would bring the drugs. He knew, no matter how much he or Spencer begged for it not to happen, the drug would be injected. He knew she'd go into a state of paralysis, lasting hours on end. He knew it would tear him up inside to watch it happen. He whispered sadly, "I could never hate you, Spence. Never."

She could feel the emotions, dormant for so long, bubbling to the surface. It was funny to her, how long she had felt nothing but emptyness, and yet her emotions had still been there. She wanted so desperately to believe him. To believe that he didn't hate her. To believe that maybe he was only part of it to protect her. To believe, she hoped, that he loved her, and that none of their relationship had been a lie. She believed that he was here, in the flesh, not just another delusion brought on by pharmaceuticals. If it was, she knew she'd never recover from this again. It would be the end of her.

But what did she have to lose? Her life? She felt her chance at life had died long ago. She could believe him and risk finding out again that he was dead. Or she could not believe him and go back to merely existing in a room, cut off from society. She, living or dead, didn't matter to anyone right now. No one had visited her in more than a month. What would it matter to anyone if she died or lived? This was her only choice. Her last choice if it turned out this was all a lie. So she chose to believe, in the very least, that he was here.

Breaking down in front of him, she allowed herself to feel everything she had been suppressing for months. All of the betrayal, all the hurt, the sadness, the grief, the contempt that she had felt, everything was now fighting for dominance in her heart. She had to admit that she had hated him once she found out about his secret, but as soon as the feeling had arose, it vanished. Once she found his body in the forest, she had felt nothing but sorrow. She had felt that she herself had killed him, and that broke her in two more than anything he could have done to her.

Her hand, still resting against his chest, tightened into a fist, clenching around his shirt. She lowered her head as she choked back a sob. He chose then to take her in his arms. She didn't pull back. She cried against his chest, allowing the tears to flow freely once again. His chin was perched atop her head. He allowed a few of his own tears to fall, hearing her breaking down in his arms too much to bear. One arm wrapped around her small frame, the other stroking her frayed hair.

He could feel her body shaking in his arms. He allowed her to cry, not knowing what to say to calm her. Her sobs echoed off the bare walls of her holding cell. He couldn't stand hearing her crying, knowing her heart was broken. It hurt him even more knowing that he had caused this to happen to her. He had never meant for this to happen to her, but maybe that had been the plan all along. Maybe that was why they had accepted him in to the team so easily. If she ever forgave him for all of his mistakes, it would take a lot longer for him to forgive himself for wounding her as much as he had.

The rhythmic rising and falling of her shoulders as she cried increased in speed. He knew from her past panic attacks that she was starting to hyperventilate. In the past, her panic attacks were manageable and moderately easy to fight off, but with her current health status, he worried that this panic attack my prove to be more of a nuisance.

He began to rub her back soothingly, making small circles right below her shoulder blades. "You need to calm down, Spencer. Easy. You need to breathe."

Her gasps for air didn't slow, however, and seemed to persist. He placed a hand on each side of her face, and gently brought her face up to meet his. Her terrified mocha eyes met with his concerned oceanic orbs. He rubbed tears away from her eyes with the pads of his thumbs as he said, "Breathe, Spence. Take a deep breath."

At first, the force of the concern in his eyes scared her, but she was soon comforted by them just as she had been a few months ago. She allowed herself to get lost in his eyes as her panicked breathing slowed gradually. He continued to whisper to her, causing her to be hypnotized by him, and soon her respirations were back to normal.

He wrapped his arms around her again, bringing her to his chest once again. Her head rested against him, and she listened to the rhythm of his heart beating against his rib cage. She could feel her sanity coming back to her as she was calmed by her own personal lullaby.

He kissed the top of her head as he vowed, "I love you, Spencer Hastings. That hasn't changed."

They rocked back and forth together for a long time. He leaned them against a wall, and soon her sobs slowed to hiccups and sniffles until stopping altogether. He could feel her breathing slow and knew she had fallen asleep against him. Still, he kept his arms around her, protecting her from the world once again.

_What have I done to you, Spence? _He asked himself.

Her appearance when he'd walked in had broken him in two. He knew now he needed to get her out of this town and away from Rosewood and everyone in it. He vowed he'd get her to safety, even if it meant when she woke, she would hate him. Even if she wouldn't want anything to do with him. Even if it meant Red Coat would kill him.

He sighed against her hair as he closed his own eyes. He wouldn't leave her again. The shadows of their love wouldn't be watching over her anymore; Toby would.


End file.
